JONGRESS 

016 013 385 





LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

016 013 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



016 013 386 7 



NOTES ON THE LANGUAGE AND 

FOLK-USAGE OF THE RIO 

GRANDE VALLEY 

{WITH ESPECIAL REGARD TO SURVIVALS OF ARABIC CUSTOM) 



BY 



JOHN g; bourke 



Reprinted from the Journal of American Folk-Lore, April-June, i8g6 



■^7 



yl 



THE JOURNAL OF 

AMERICAN FOLK-LORE. 

Vol. IX.— APRIL-JUNE, 1896. — No. XXXIII. 



NOTES ON THE LANGUAGE AND FOLK-USAGE OF 
THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY.i 

(with especial regard to survivals of ARABIC CUSTOM.) 
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 



Introductory. 

Dress of Mexicans. 

Jewelry. 

Houses, Architecture, etc. 

Furniture. 

Meals. 

Foods. 

Flowers, Fruits, Trees, etc. 

Pack-trains. 

Bull-fights. 

Streets, Lamps, Watchmen, Baths. 

Clocks and Watches. 

The custom of Pelon. 

Bakeries. 

Baths. 

Amusements. 



Gambling. 
Correr el Gallo. 
Bailes and Tertulias. 
Christenings. 
Courtship and Marriage. 
Mortuary Ceremonies. 
Customs in Churches. 
Almsgiving, Fasting, Pilgrimages, Ab- 
lutions. 
Penitentes. 

Phrases and Catchwords. 
Proverbs and Refrains. 
Treatment of the Sick. 
Miracle- Workers. 
Laws and Regulative System. 
Commerce. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

The term " Rio Grande Valley," as employed in this paper, must 
be understood as applying to any part of the extreme southern 
or Mexican boundary of the United States ; not alone the Brazos 
River, which for so many hundreds of leagues of its turbid course 
winds about amid the villages of a Mexican population, and is sup- 
posed by some legal fiction to divide the soil of the two great repub- 
lics of North America, but also the Gila of Arizona, and such sec- 
tions of Mexican territory itself which may from time to time have 
been visited by the writer. 

The designation " Arabic " would be equally misleading were it 

1 Paper presented at the Seventh Annual Meeting of the American Folk-Lore 
Society, Philadelphia, Pa., December 28, 1895. 



■ 8 2 Journal of A merican Folk-Lore. 

not understood at the outset that the so-called Arab domination in 
Spain was a commingling, and not always a peaceful or happy one, 
of Mahomedan sectaries from Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the 
former Roman provinces of Mauritania and the Cyrenaica, in North- 
ern Africa. For generations there does not seem to have been even 
a semblance of amalgamation. The polished Syrian from Damascus 
established himself in Cordova and Granada, revelling in the luxury 
afforded by vine and olive and pomegrante, while the rude Moslem 
Berber scowled upon the still ruder Christian in the mountains of 
the Asturias. 

But between 1492, the year which witnessed the surrender of El 
Zogoybi and threw open the portals of the New World, and the year 
1609 and 1610, which witnessed the eviction of the last armed body 
of Moriscoes from the cliffs of the Alpucarras, it is not too much to 
suppose that the pressure of Christian power had brought about a 
;more perfect fusion of the discordant elements formerly ruled by the 
Caliphate of the West, and from the new sons of the Church gathered 
up from all sections of Andalusia and Murcia and the Castiles, no 
doubt, many bold spirits went to seek rest and better fortune beyond 
the sea. 

There having been no such thing as organized colonization in the 
primitive period of Mexican history, it would, of course, be a hope- 
less task at this late day to attempt to determine how great a per- 
centage of Moorish blood was included in the Caucasian migration 
to New Spain, but there is reason to regard it as having been of 
considerable importance, either on account of self-imposed exile in 
the years following the surrender of Granada to Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella, or because of the gradual assimilation and intermarriage of 
Arab-Moors and Christians which had been quietly going on from 
the landing of Tarik el Tuerto in 710 or 711, and with accelerated 
force from the day of the Christian victory of Navas de Tolosa in 
12 1 2. 

DRESS OF MEXICANS. 

By inquiring what was the clothing of the Moorish working classes, 
and then comparing it with that now in use among the Mexicans, 
the exact amount of " survival " can at once be determined. 

The adage that " the apparel doth oft proclaim the man " was as true 
of the Arab-Moor and of the Mexican as of the Dane or the Angle. 
" For the common people (males) the ordinary dress was a gown 
or long sack, gathered with a belt at the waist ; beneath were loose 
drawers gathered at the ankle, and the overdress was a large-sleeved 
mantle, open in front. For the street or the field, sandals were usu- 
ally worn ; but these were replaced in the house by heelless slippers 
such as are still found in the bazaars of Tangiers and Morocco. . . . 



Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 83 

For the people at large, no long time elapsed before the turban fell 
into disuse in Spain." (Coppee, " Hist, of the Conq. of Spain by the 
Arab-Moors," vol. ii. p. 313, Boston, 1881.) 

We know that the dress of the Aztecs in Mexico — that is of the 
common people — consisted in sandals, loin-cloth, and a loose cotton 
mantle ; in winter, perhaps, they had a rabbit-skin mantelet or cloak, 
the same as that until lately worn by Moquis, Zufiis, Hualpais, 
Utes, and even Navajoes and Apaches. The Spaniards compelled 
the natives to wear " clothing." (See " Laws of Spain in their Appli- 
cation to the American Indians," Bourke, in ** American Anthropolo- 
gist," 1893, quoting law of Emperor Charles V., a. d. 155 i. No. 22, 
from the " Recopilacion de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias," 
Madrid, 168 1.) This clothing to-day consists of guarachis, or alpar- 
gatas for the feet, calzoncillos, or loose drawers which are frequently 
tied at ankle, a long white cotton shirt, camisa, worn outside the 
drawers, and corresponding to the " gown or long sack " of Coppee ; 
this is gathered by a faja or sash, generally of red cotton.^ The 
serape, a bright-colored blanket, covers the shoulders. The sombrero 
for the head seems to be a Spanish modification of a high, conical, 
broad-brimmed straw hat worn by Tlascatlecs, Tarascos, and Otomies ; 
but, on ceremonial occasions, the young bucks appear in a chaqueton, 
which is adorned with everything in the way of buttons, frogging, 
and cheap lace that money can buy, and closely corresponds to the 
" large-sleeved mantle." 

The sombrero is banded with a coiled rattlesnake in gold or silver 
galloon, a survival, no doubt, from the real rattlesnake skin which 
encircled the covering of more primitive times. 

In the outlying cities of Mexico, such as Morelia, Patzcuaro, or 
Monclova, elderly gentlemen of good social position still adhere to 
the flowing capa or cloak, and, at rarer intervals, don a silver-handled 
sword. This capa is generally believed to be the offspring of the 
Roman toga, but, according to Coppee (ii. 312), "the famous Span- 
ish capa or cloak of the present day owes its origin to no single 
people." The word for waistcoat {chaleco) might be mentioned, but 
the garment is not much used. 

So much for the dress of the men. The Arab women in Spain 
" wore two long robes, an inner and an outer one, the former only 
confined at the waist ; the inner, close-fitting, with sleeves, and the 
outer, a saya or mantle; they had, besides, full drawers and heelless 

^ There are some reasons for believing that both shirts and drawers were intro- 
duced into Europe by the Arabs. Coppde's statement in regard to the disuse of 
the turban is in apparent conflict with Eguilaz y Yanguas' Glosario, art. " Almai- 
zal " and " Albengala," but the discordance may have arisen from a difference in 
dates. 



84 yournal of American Fo Ik-Lore, 

slippers. These robes were frequently striped and embroidered with 
gold and silver. The long, oblong shawl, or outer veil, called izar, a 
covering for concealment, now known and generally used in Spain as 
the mantilla, was probably adopted from the Goths and Hispano-Ro- 
mans." (Coppee, op. cit. ii. 315.) In America we have the enagiias, 
or petticoats (also called cJmpa, French j'upon, an Arabic word), 
chardas or slippers, and the reboso of Mexico, together with the 
chala, or shawl. The robes, which "were frequently striped and 
embroidered with gold and silver," find their counterpart in the 
beautiful and expensive blankets of silk interwoven with gold thread 
for which the lovely city of Saltillo, Mexico, was once famous. 

But a distinctively Arabic origin cannot be claimed for them. 
They may have come from Damascus, or may have been manufac- 
tured in the Iberian peninsula during the time of Roman or Cartha- 
ginian supremacy. 

Gibbon indeed states that Roderic the Goth, at the battle of the 
Guadalete, was " incumbered with a flowing robe of gold and silken 
embroidery" ("Dec. and Fall," cap. 51), and Conde speaks of "gor- 
geous tissues, the least valuable being textures of silk and gold," 
sent as presents to the king of Castile by Jusef, king of Granada, 
A. D. 1402. (" Domination of Arabs in Spain," vol. iii. p. 304.) The 
same kind of precious fabrics will be found referred to on pages 313, 
330, 334, and Z7^\ ^i^d under the name of algiiexi, such fabrics were 
mentioned in a cJiarta of King Ferdinand, anno iioi, according to 
Eguilaz y Yanguas, " Glosario." And Rockhill speaks of tirmas, or 
garments made of gold and silken threads interwoven as in use to-day 
in China, Thibet, and North India, (W. W. Rockhill, " Land of the 
Lamas," p. 282, New York, 1891,) 

Among Mahomedans of the present day, the reboso has been 
superseded or supplemented hy tht yashmak ; in Spain the women 
were allowed more freedom and were not always required to be 
veiled. "The king's sister, Soura, was riding in the streets without 
a veil, a common and not improper practice in the West," (Coppee, 
ii. 231.) 

There is an apparent antagonism between Copp6e's statement that 
the Arabs in Spain soon discontinued the use of the turban (as 
above repeated), and the remarks given by Stirling-Maxwell, who 
tells us that in 15 18 the Moriscoes were commanded to "speak Cas- 
tilian and dress like Spaniards," and that " in the name of the crazy 
Queen Juana a decree was issued requiring the Moriscoes to lay 
aside the robes and turbans of their ancient race and assume the 
hated hats and breeches of their oppressors," ("Life of Don John 
of Austria," vol, i, pp, 118, 119, London, 1873.) 

It is quite likely that many of the Moriscoes, in the enthusiasm of 



Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 85 

their final struggle with the Roman-Goth, may have readopted the 
turban as a conspicuous and serviceable headdress. 

Umbrellas and parasols are very rarely seen among Mexicans ; 
their origin is distinctly Asiatic. When Mahomed entered Medina, 
at end of the Hegira, "an umbrella shaded his head." (Gibbon, 
"Decl. and Fall," cap. 50.) But, on the other hand, that dangerous 
weapon, the Spanish fan, may be ascribed to the Romans, in whose 
religious ceremonials two fans, made of white peacock feathers, were 
borne before the Pontifex Maximus. They are said still to figure in 
some of the more elaborate functions of the Vatican. 

It is only necessary to add that the word sombrero is of Latin 
origin, and equivalent to "shader," -&. prima facie proof that the Span- 
iards derived head-gear from the Romans ; while the origin of the 
word corresponding to " shoe," zapato, is doubtful, the reputation of the 
Moslem for skill in all that relates to leather goods is perpetuated in 
the name " cordwainer " (from " cordovan," leather made in Cordova). 

The clothing of the smaller Mexican children in the Rio Grande 
valley will not occupy much of our space ; nearly all of them dress 
a r Aztecque, which does not mgan much of a toilette. 

JEWELRY. 

No paper treating even superficially of the apparel of women can 
afford to ignore the jewels and other adornment in which they so 
greatly delight. 

The "filagree" or "filagrana" work in silver and gold of the Mexi- 
can //^/i^wi- was one of the features of border life which first attracted 
the attention of Americans and others who some twenty-five or 
thirty years ago had ventured out to the then remote cities of Santa 
Fe, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Los Angeles, or Tucson. It has 
since become too well known to need description. Its derivation is 
undoubtedly Arab-Moorish. 

"The Arab-Moors were also very skilful in the fabrics of the jew- 
eller and the goldsmith, the art of which they brought from Damascus, 
and to-day shops, differing very slightly from those of the Moorish 
period, may be seen in that city, where various and delicate patterns 
of filagree-work in gold and silver attract a populace very fond of 
rather glaring ornaments." (Coppee, vol. ii. p. 400.) "Among the 
joyas, brilliant earrings and curiously wrought necklaces always find 
a prominent place " {loc. cit), just as they do on the Mexican fron- 
tier to-day. Salajas mean jewelry of all kinds ; prendedor^ a breast- 
pin : sortijas, earrings. 

Not only the filagree jewelry, but the dainty, filmy deshilada, or 
drawn work, may claim an Arabic origin, and this in face of the fact 
that the word itself is a Latin compound meaning "unthreaded." 



86 yournal of American Folk-Lore. 

In the privacy of the Arab-Moor seraglio this dainty art may have 
been fostered, to receive its highest development afterwards in the 
seclusion of the Christian cloister. The names of the different pat- 
terns are in several cases Christian and in no case Mahomedan. 
Thus, we have the crown of Christ {corona de Cristo), the cross {ia 
cruz), the cross with stars (Ja cruz con estrellas), the rain of gold {la 
lliLvia de oro) the wheel {la ritedd), make me if you can {Jiazme si 
puedes) the footprint of the water-carrier {el tacon del barrilero), and 
very many others. 

HOUSES, ARCHITECTURE, ETC.^ 

Mexican houses have been so often described that it is not worth 
while to say much about them. In one word, they are generally of 
one story, offering to the street either no opening at all, or else a 
series of high, narrow windows, heavily guarded by rejas or grills 
made of rods of wrought iron disposed vertically. These long, nar- 
row windows betray a people accustomed for generations to intense 
heat and anxious so to arrange their habitations that the smallest 
possible amount of solar rays may enter. 

All rooms open out upon an inner court, or patio, which is very 
generally filled with flowers, vines, and palms ; in the ceutre will be 
found an alj'ibe, or cistern (Arabic word). Entrance from the street 
is through a high-arched and stone-paved porte-cochere, called the 
zaguan (Arabic word). The rooms to right and left of the zaguan 
are devoted to household administration, reception of guests, and 
such purposes — the flanking rooms are sleeping-apartments ; in the 
rear line are the kitchen, store-rooms, and servants' rooms. Back of 
the kitchen comes the corral, with sheds for horses, cows, burros, 
and sometimes with a blacksmith's forge. Postigo is the name of 
the little sliding door which admits of a look-out from the heavily- 
barred gate that closes the zaguan. 

In the mansions of the wealthy living in cities, or on the large 
haciendas, two stories are introduced, the upper surrounded on the 
inner side by a corridor open to the side of ^^a^ patio and supported 
upon pillars. In these large houses, and in the old monasteries one 
comes across miradores (observation-places on the flat roofs), and 
azoteas, or terraces, which are Arabic and not Gothic in origin. The 
material of construction is stone, very rarely brick, and more gener- 
ally adobe and cajon, the last-named being practically a large adobe. 
The name for an ordinary burned brick is ladrillo ; tapia means 
rubble masonry. 

^ The description of a Spanish-Arab house given by Henry Copp^e, History 
of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, vol. ii. pp. 307, 308, in most of its 
features applies to the greater portion of the better class of houses in Mexico 
to-day. 



Language and Folk- Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. Z"] 

Both the outside and inside walls of houses are most frequently 
stuccoed in bright colors and pleasing patterns. 

Roofs are of tile, of thatch, sometimes of shingles and sometimes 
of earth covered over with a coating of plaster. In the material of 
construction, in the roofing and stuccoing, no less than in the 
ground-plan, most of these abodes could replace those described in 
books upon Arabia and Morocco. 

When they can obtain these easily, Mexicans are as lavish in the 
use of whitewash and plaster as were the Arab-Moors of Spain. 

In Cadiz (a Spanish city tracing back to the early centuries of 
Phoenician and Carthaginian occupancy) it is related that whitewash 
is kept in constant readiness in every household. 

One of the grandest creations of Moorish architectural genius, — 
the Alhambra, — is a monument in stucco. 

The churches of Mexico follow after the model of those in Spain, 
which, as has been shown, was not much interfered with during the 
centuries of Arab-Moorish contact. Nevertheless, the little half- 
orange {medio-naranja) domes of the Moors are to be seen in some 
of the beautiful mission churches like that of San Xavier del Bac, 
near Tucson, Arizona, and the artesonado, or bread-tray roof, is not 
unknown, but the beautiful, convoluted, double horseshoe arch or 
ajimez never was adopted. 

The canopy used in religious processions is still called by the term 
baldachm (baldachino, stuff made in Bagdad). 

It may be of interest to know that Moorish convicts were em- 
ployed in the construction of the castle of San Juan de Alloa, in the 
harbor of Vera Cruz, Mexico. 

FURNITURE. 

Among the poorest class of Mexicans, those who live in squalid 
huts of thatch, with floors of earth, the custom obtains of sleeping 
on the floor while wearing the clothes of the day. 

This custom is not peculiar to any one nation. It was known to 
the Aztec ; it obtains among the Apache and was not unknown to 
Goth and Arab. " Spaniards of more than one rank sleep in their 
clothes," says C. Bogue Luffmann, in "A Vagabond in Spain," 
p. 257. (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895.) 

Cond6 says, "Les Espagnols vivent comme des betes sauvages, 
entrant les uns chez les autres sans demander permission, et ne 
lavent ni leurs corps ni leurs habits, qu'ils n'otent que lorsqu'ils 
tombent en lambeaux." (Viardot, "Essais," vol. i. pp. 191-192, 
quoted by Burke, "History of Spain," vol. i. p. 158 footnote.) 

" I have been told that many Portuguese peasants dislike the 
inconvenience of undressing at night, so that no time is lost in mak- 



88 Journal of American Folk-Lore. 

ing a toilet in the morning. My informant further stated that night 
and day for weeks many wear the same garments, trusting to showers 
to cleanse and sun to bleach their scanty garb." (Letter signed 
"Professor," in "Citizen," Brooklyn, N. Y., November 25, 1895.) 
"El acostarse en el suelo es comun entre los Celtos y los Espanoles." 
(Padre Florez, "Espaiia Sagrada," vol. xv. p 30.) 

"An Oriental, going to sleep, merely spreads a mat and adjusts 
his clothes in a certain position and lays himself down." (" Encyc. 
of Geog." Philadelphia, 1845, vol. ii. p. 227, article "Asia.") 

" The Tibetans are dirty. They wash once a year, and, except 
for festivals, never change their clothes till they begin to drop off." 
(Isabella Bird Bishop, "Among the Tibetans," p. 45, New York, 
1875.) 

MEALS. 

The different meals of the Mexicans are the early breakfast or 
desayuno, now made of bread and coffee or chocolate, and two other 
meals bearing Latin names, and apparently of Latin origin, the 
comida or dinner, and the cena or supper. But to these have been 
added the full breakfast or almuerzo, and the evening collation or 
merienda. 

The Mexican manner of eating, in which all those at table dip 
their hands into a common dish, is still to be noted in the small vil- 
lages off the lines of railroad. 

It was commented upon at length in a previous article (" Folk- 
Foods of the Rio Grande," in Journal of American Folk-Lore), in 
which it was shown that the same custom must have been followed 
by our Saviour. 

It has been transmitted down to the Mahdi, so conservative are 
the tribes of the East of all ancient usages. Father Bonomi, a bold 
priest, who very recently made his escape from the Soudan, says : 
" Sometimes we dined at the Mahdi's table, which was very scanty. 
A dish contained a curious mixture from which each took with his 
fingers the portions he liked." (Reported in " Times," New York, 
September 7, 1895.) 

In Madame Calderon de la Barca's day this custom was almost 
general in Mexico. "All common servants in Mexico and all com- 
mon people eat with their fingers." ("Life in Mexico," p. 392, 
London, 1843.) 

Describing his dinner with a lawyer and his family at Andujar, in 
Spain, C. Bogue Luffmann says : " There was no tablecloth, no nap- 
kins, no plates, no knives, forks, or spoons. We ate from one dish." 
(" A Vagabond in Spain.") 

And Richard Ford, the great authority, says that in Spain " chairs 
are a luxury ; the lower classes sit on the ground as in the East, or on 



Language and Folk- Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 89 

low stools, and fall to in a most Oriental manner, with an un-Euro- 
pean ignorance of forks, for which they substitute a short wooden or 
horn spoon, or dip their bread into the dish, or fish up morsels with 
their long pointed knives. . . . Forks are an Italian invention . . . 
introduced into Somersetshire about 1690." (" Gatherings in Spain," 
p. 181, London, 1846.) 

FOODS. 

An examination of Mexican foods cannot fail to be of interest and 
importance, no matter from what point of view it may be made. 

Leaving out of consideration those which, like chocolate, are of 
distinctly American lineage, it will be found that the Roman Goth 
has left a very large heritage of food to his American descendants, 
but that the Arab-Moorish sire has also been generous. 

Thus coffee, cafe, comes from the Arab-Moor, and is still served 
in the coffee districts of Mexico as an extracto, precisely as it is 
served and has been served, by the Moors for centuries. Asucar 
(sugar) 1 is not only Arabic itself, but many things connected with 
its manufacture suggest the same derivation. Connected terms are : 
trapiche, a sugar-mill ; chancaca, crude brown sugar ; bagaza, bagasse ; 
cande, candy ; pelonce, peloncillo, sugar in the loaf, and almibar, the 
generic name for preserves of all kinds. 

But, with the exception of course of the national beverages, /?//^?/^ 
and mescal, it is in his drinks rather than in his solid foods that the 
Mexican shows how much he has taken from the customs of the 
Moslem. 

Aloque, red wine, jarabe, syrup (from Arabic schardb, a sweet 
drink), elixir, sorbete, sherbet, and orcJiata, orgeat, are words con- 
stantly to be heard from the smallest pueblo at the source of the 
Rio Grande to the smallest on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.^ 

FLOWERS, FRUITS, TREES, ETC.^ 

Entering the patio of a well-kept Mexican home, one cannot 
restrain a feeling of surprise at the many evidences of transplanta- 
tion. 

^ In Mexico " the first sugar-canes were planted in 1 520 by Don Pedro Alienza." 
Cortds "left sugar plantations near Cuyoacan in the Valley of Mexico." Madame 
Calderon de la Barca, Life in Mexico, p. 244, London, 1843. 

2 The Mexican custom of selling all kinds of cooked food on little tables in the 
market-places is distinctively Arabic. " En los socos que los Arabes de Espana 
tenian en sus poblaciones, se vendia toda suerte de manjares y aun comidas 
aderezadas." Eguilaz y Yanguas, Glosario, p. 39, under " A^ouque." 

3 From the very earliest days of Spanish domination, Mexico became a garden 
of all the fruits and flowers mentioned in this paper, while she in return favored 
the Europeans with her own delicious pineapple. Roses, jasmines, and others of 
Flora's choicest treasures, bloomed in the gardens of every Franciscan monastery. 



90 Journal of American Folk-Lore. 

Here is the castor-oil plant, a wanderer from Northern Africa and 
the Nile valley. Next to it, the stately red-flowered oleander; the 
rose, the queen of the garden ; the date, the solace of the great 
Abdu-r-rahman ; the jasmin, oi delicate odor; the pomegranate, which 
did not give its name to Granada; the apricot, albericoqite, and peach, 
diirazno, known to the Romans as the Persicus or Persian fruit ; occa- 
sionally the almond, almejidra, and at all times the orange, naranjo, 
with its redolent flower, azahar ; the lemon, Ihnon ; the shaddock, 
toronja ; the olive, aceituno ; the quince, ineinbrillo ; the apple, man- 
zana ; the succulent watermelon, sandia ; rice, arroz ; the poppy, 
amdpola ; the musk-flower, almizcle ; tulip, tidipan; barley, cebada ; 
bran, salvado ; shorts, asemilla, from Arabic acemita ; saffron, aza- 
fran ; anemone ; verbena ; cork, corcho ; ebony, ebano ; lily, azucena ; 
cotton, algodon; hemp, cdnamo ; myrtle, array an ; acorn, bellota ; 
odlk, roble ; juniper, sabina ; poplar, alamo; luzerne grass, alfalfa; 
grass, sacate ; forage, /brr^V / prickly pear, tuna; bamboo, bambu. 
Grapes grow wild in all parts of our own Southwest, and in every 
section of the great Mexican republic, yet the Spaniards introduced 
new varieties. The celebrated mission grape of California was 
introduced by Franciscan monks from Malaga. (Madame Calderon 
de la Barca, "Life in Mexico," p. 174.) 

The name for fig is higo, Latin ficus ; this would seem to- show 
that the Roman-Goths had this fruit before the Arab-Moors over- 
whelmed them ; and the suspicion is aroused that they must have 
had many others ; indeed, Eguilaz y Yanguas says that the Arab 
word coti meant " fig of the Goths." There is no lack of historical 
authority to support the suspicions aroused by philology. It should 
be remembered that Spain, as far back as the days of Solomon, was, 
at least along its seacoast, a province of the first importance in the 
eyes of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Romans. Its cities were 
hives of industry and marts of trade. Its wool, its cloth, its oil, 
wine, flour, and minerals of all kinds were famous. Its people were 
luxurious, refined, and scholarly. If dancing-girls from Cadiz clicked 
their castanets in the theatres of voluptuous Capua, the Roman 
Bishop of Cordova — Hosius, the friend of Constantine — was one 
of the guiding spirits at the Council of Nice. 

Spain furnished the first foreign emperor, Trajan, to Rome, and 
the first foreign consul, Balbutius. Her citizens were the first, out- 
side of Italy, to have Roman citizenship generally accorded them. 
The list of orators, poets, and philosophers furnished by Spain to 

Francis Parkman, in his Life of Champlain, gives to that great Frenchman the 
credit of planting the first European roses in North America in his garden at 
Quebec, Canada (circa A. d. 1609). But Parkman's works do not apply to Mex- 
ico or the Mexican border. 



Language and Folk- Usage of the Rio Grande Valley, g i 

Rome is long and distinguished. All this glory, all this luxury faded 
under the continuous raiding of Alan, Sueve, Vandal, and Goth. 
When the Vandals left for Africa they were charged with a ruthless 
destruction and extirpation of gardens and vineyards. All these 
facts should be present in mind in reading that the Arab-Moors 
introduced certain fruits and flowers into Spain ; what they did, no 
doubt, was to restock the country. 

Coppee (i. 158) says that the peach, pomegranate, and date-palm 
were introduced into Spain by Abdu-r-rhaman I. about 76y-y'jo 
A. D. "The pomegranate was introduced by a specimen brought 
from Damascus." (Stanley Lane-Poole, p. 132.) The same king 
" himself planted a palm-tree, which was at that time a new thing 
in Spain — this being the first and only one in all the land." (Conde, 
"Dom. Arabs in Spain," vol. i. p. 182. See, also, Stanley Lane-Poole, 
"Arabs in Spain," p. 132.) He adds : "He sent agents all over the 
world to bring him the rarest exotics," which speedily spread from 
the palace all over the land. " Dates of very rare kinds . . . 
transported into Spain by Zeiria ben Atia," A. p. 987. (Cond6, vol. 
ii. p. 21.) Another Abdu-r-rhaman (third of the name) planted 
orange-groves at Cordova, in a. d. 957, although we are not told that 
these were the first. (Conde, vol. i. p. 443.) In another place Conde 
mentions "orange-trees and jasmines " in Cordova in 987. (Conde, 
vol. ii. p. 13.) 

From what may be read in Theophile Gautier, "Wanderings in 
Spain," Harrison, "Spain in Profile," Fincke, " Spain and Morocco," 
and others, the oleander must have come to the Rio Grande Valley 
from Spain and Morocco. 

The Mexicans of to-day are very fond of preserves, dried fruits of 
all kinds, and various confections for the preparation of which the 
Carmelite nuns were famous. There is reason to believe that this 
dexterity came down from the Arabs of Spain. " The conserves and 
fruits of all kinds" served to King Almansor in Murcia, in a. d. 984, 
"were matters of marvel," so Conde tells us, vol. ii. p. 5, and again, 
he speaks of " a thousand loads of dried fruits of different kinds " 
(a. d. 987). (Conde, "Dom. Arabs in Spain," vol. ii. p. 17.) 

It would take up too much space to go into the nomenclature of 
garden vegetables ; few, if any, of those known to the Moors of 
Spain were unknown to the Romans. With the exception of pota- 
toes, one of the most important gifts of the New World, and the 
scarcely less important tomato of the Aztecs, and maize, nearly every 
vegetable in the Mexican gardens bears a Latin name, — onions, 
garlic, cabbage, peas, beans, lettuce, turnips, mushrooms, celery. 
The palatable /ny<7/<?, which forms the plato nacional of the repub- 
lic, is a Mexican product. Only three plants are involved in doubt : 



92 Journal of American Folk- Lore. 

the zanahoria or carrot, which would seem to be Arabic, the acelga 
or beet, and the garbanzo or chicharron, a species of pea, said to be 
the cicer of the Romans. 

The bufiuelo, or fritter, made by the Mexican woman at Christmas, 
has been derived from Spain. Its resemblance to the crispillac of 
the Normans has been elsewhere noted.^ Doughnuts fried in sweet 
oil, which are the same as the bunuelos, are much used in Spain at 
Corpus Christi, according to John Hay in " Castilian Days," p. 107, 
Boston, Osgood, 1871. 

The Mexican fondness for iced cream and ices of all kinds, when 
they can be had, is Oriental. A deadly compound called amanteqiii- 
lladoy and which has been fully described in " Folk-Foods of the Rio 
Grande," is largely composed of frozen butter, cinnamob, and nutmeg. 
It is to be hoped that the responsibility for its paternity rests upon 
the Mahomedan Moor and not upon the Christian Goth. It is still 
to be found in Spain. Theophile Gautier found such " ices " made 
either of cream, milk, butter, or cheese, during his " Wanderings in 
Spain" (pp. 31, 32, London, 1853). Harrison also describes them 
in his " Spain in Profile." 

So, too, let us trust that the responsibility for the horny, indiges- 
tible goat's cheese of Mexico may be shifted from Christian shoul- 
ders. Its name, queso, controverts the assumption that it is of Arabic 
origin, and it is made from the milk of the cabrita, or she-goat, which 
bears a Latin name ; nevertheless, further investigation may show 
that its present mode of manufacture is Arabic or Moorish. 

PACK-TRAINS. 

Nearly all domestic animals in Mexico bear Latin names. This 
would show that before the Arab invasion the Roman Goths pos- 
sessed all these. 

When we come to the names used in herds of horses and pack- 
mules the case changes at once. The Arabs were a nation of cav- 
alry and mule or camel packers, and the language of to-day retains 
indications of the fact. So most of the names for the colors of 
horses are Arabic. 

In regard to pack-trains, one of the most interesting cases of 
transplantation confronts us. Not only are all, or very nearly all the 
words in the packer's vocabulary Arabic, but the whole organization 
is Andalusian. 

To begin with the superintendent of the pack-train ; it is true that 
he bears the Roman title oi patron, and his first assistant the equally 
Roman one of the cargador ; but the pack-train itself is an atajo, 

1 " Medicine Men of the Apache," Burke, in vol. ix. Anmial Report, Bureau of 
Ethnology, Smithsonian, Washington, D. C. 



Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 93 

the bell is cencerro, the bell-mare ac^mila, the individual pack-mules 
are machos ; when mules are used outside of a pack-train they go by 
the Latin name of imdo. The pack-saddle is aparejo, sometimes 
albarda ; the pack-cover is sobre-en-jalma, in which y^/w^ is Arabic ; 
the packer himself is arriero, from the Arabic arrcy go 'long, ad- 
dressed to his mules ; the eye-blind is tapojo ; the canteen is guaje ; 
the saddle-bags, alforjas ; currycomb, almohaza. 

Pack-trains grew up from the necessities of the case. Spain is a 
country of elevated mountain-ranges in which the still unconquered 
Christians had taken refuge. To pursue them, pack animals of 
some kind were necessary for transportation purposes. Mules being 
sure-footed, alert, comparatively small, and therefore better suited 
for work in narrow, winding defiles, and being also able to move 
about on rocky trails and in the cold climate of the plateaux of 
Estremadura, the Castilles, and the Asturias, were naturally chosen 
in place of elephants or camels. 

No Spanish treatise upon the art of packing, or the management 
of pack-trains, can be found in the catalogues of the Ticknor or 
Marsh collections or the library of Congress. Three have been pub- 
lished in the United States, all based upon the work of Mr. Thomas 
Moore, chief of transportation for General Crook during his Indian 
campaigns in Arizona, Wyoming, and Montana, and instructed in his 
business by expert Mexican and Chilian packers on the Pacific 
coast. 

Pack-trains will, however, be found mentioned from the earliest 
days of the Arab invasion of Spain. When Tarik's army was ad- 
vancing through Spain, "rations for immediate use were carried 
upon mules, the arrieros or drivers of which were chosen from the 
number of those least capable of bearing arms." (Copp6e, " History 
of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors," vol. i. p. 333.) 

" Many sumpter mules laden with bales of delicate cloth " are 
mentioned by Conde under date of a. d. 987 (vol. ii. p. 17). "Bag- 
gage mules to carry off the spoils " were supplied by the discom- 
fited Christians to Almanzor (circa A. d. iooo). (Stanley Lane-Poole, 
"Moors in Spain," p. 166, New York.) "The tents and pavilions 
were packed on mules and camels, as were also certain parts of the 
provisions," by the army of the Arab King Abdelmemumen ben Ali 
(a. d. 1 158). (Conde, vol. ii. p. 487.) And so it goes ; in every war 
in Spain the pack-mule and the pack-train are prominently men- 
tioned. When Queen Isabella established the city of Santa Fe in 
the Vega of Granada (a. d. 1491-1492), her army was kept supplied 
by a train of no less than fifteen thousand pack-mules. 

At a somewhat later date, when Don John of Austria prosecuted 
his campaign against the revolted Moors in the Alpuxarras, a. d. 



94 Journal of American Folk-Lore. 

1 569-1 5 70, one of his divisions, that of Manuel, had no less than 
"fourteen hundred pack-mules." (Stirling-Maxwell, "Life of Don 
John of Austria," vol. i. p. 221, London, 1873.) In the same campaign 
he also refers to " fifteen hundred sumpter mules." {Idem, p. 276.) 

It is pretty evident from the evidence of history that the Goths 
had no pack-trains, although they had the animals required of them 
by the Moors. The Goths were a slow-moving people with wagons. 
Their king, Roderic, at the battle of the Guadalete, rode in a car 
of ivory, drawn by two white oxen. 

There are pack-trains in Spain at the present hour, but the best 
belong to the Maragatos of Galicia, who are reputed to be of Moor- 
ish blood. (See Ford's " Hand-Book of Spain," " Maragatos.") 

A recent and trustworthy authority speaks of pack-trains in remote 
Thibet. " I saw one caravan leave for Shi-gat-za, in which were over 
3,000 pack-animals, mostly mules." (W. W. Rockhill, " Land of the 
Lamas," p. 284, New York, 1891.) 

The great value of pack-trains in military operations against the 
Apaches and other savage tribes in the Rocky Mountain region west 
of the Missouri has been recognized in " On the Border with Crook ; " 
but were all notes and memoranda on the subject to be presented 
they would make a volume of themselves. 

Even in personal characteristic, the Mexican arriero is identical 
with his Hispano-Moresque prototype. Like him he indulges in 
simple ballads and songs of love, drawled out in a heart-rending 
nasahzed prolongation. 

"The Spanish muleteer has an inexhaustible stock of songs and 
ballads with which to beguile his incessant wayfaring. His airs are 
rude and simple, consisting of but few inflections, , . . These he 
chants forth with a loud voice and long, drawling cadence. . , , This 
talent of singing and improvising is frequent in Spain, and is said to 
have been inherited from the Moors," Washington Irving, " Alham- 
bra," pp. 16, 17, New York, 1865.^ Something might be said about 
the cooking in pack-trains a quarter of a century ago presenting 
quaint and highly spiced dishes, but only one reference can now 
be made to such matters. The packers habitually employed sour 
dough as a leaven. This method, described in a little pamphlet the 
manuscript for which was submitted to and published by Brigadier- 
General John R Hawkins, lately Commissary-General U, S, Army, 

1 As illustrative of the tenacity of life shown by the ballads of a people, read 
what is said by Mr. Alfred M. Williams about American sea-ballads : " They are 
likely to be lost with the chants of the Phoenician sailors, or the rowers of the 
galley of Ulysses, which they succeeded and some of whose melody they have 
perhaps reproduced," Studies in Folk-Lore and Popular Poetry^ p. 10, Boston, 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894. 



Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 95 

is Spanish, perhaps Moorish, in origin. It is noted by only one 
author, C. Bogue Luffmann, as seen by him in Spain. (" A Vaga- 
bond in Spain," p. 237, New York, Scribners, 1895.) 

BULL-FIGHTS. 

Beyond a mere statement of the fact that the bull-fight is a well- 
established form of public entertainment in the cities of Mexico 
nearest to the valley of the Rio Grande, and that it adheres with 
fidelity to the model set in old Spain, nothing will be said in this 
paper. The subject is too vast. Contrary to the opinion maintained 
by most writers, that the bull-fight was of Arabic origin, there are 
grounds for believing that it was a Roman institution, taking on life 
in the days of imperial decadence, eagerly adopted and to a consid- 
erable extent modified by the Moslems of Andalusia.^ 

Should opportunity present, these views, with the authorities for 
and against them, will be elaborated in another article. 

STREETS, LAMPS, WATCHMEN, BATHS. 

From the house to the street is the most natural order of progres- 
sion in treating of a people, their homes, manners, and customs. 
The streets of Mexican towns present strong resemblances to those 
of Arabic Spain and Morocco in being narrow and hemmed in by 
houses with zaguanes, iron-railed windows, projecting balconies, and 
walled patios. There is no general rule as regards paving, some 
streets in the town being empedrados (cobble-stoned), some paved 
with the Arabic giiijas, or gravel, others unpaved ; in some there is a 
gutter in the middle, in others there are gutters on each side. Gen- 
erally there are very narrow footways on one or both sides ; their 
presence cannot always be depended upon. Where muddy seasons 
are to be expected, as in Pazcuaro, near the Hotel Ybarra, a line of 
elevated foot-stones runs down the centre. If the promenade be 
made by night, one meets at every second or third corner the sereno, 
or watchman, who derives his name from the cry he was wont to 
give until very recently of sere-e-n-0-0-0 (clear weather). He is a son 

1 There is another side to the story : " Bull-fights appear to have been a favor- 
ite amusement from the earliest time in the Spanish peninsula. It is evident that 
this custom existed before the Romans entered Spain, for it is represented upon 
ancient medals of a period earlier than their arrival." Edward Everett Hale and 
Susan Hale, The Story of Spain, p. 8, New York, Putnams, 1886. 

Padre Francisco Florez, in his great work, Espaha Sagrada (Madrid, 1750), 
tome xix. p. 75 et seq., mentions a Gothic Bishop Ataulpho, accused of crime, 
ordered by King Ordono I. to fight a wild bull in the arena of Compostella in 
Galicia, Spain, circa A. D. 851 — "que el Obispo fuese echado d las fieras, esto es, 
que, poniendole en sitio publico, le arrojasen un toro de los mas feroces que fuese 
el verdugo de tal culpa." 



96 yournal of American Folk-Lore. 

of Islam on the wrong side of the Atlantic. The Arab emirs had 
watchmen in all their villages. They are directly mentioned in 
Granada as early as a. d. 1343. (Conde, vol. iii. p. 267.) London and 
Paris did not have any at that date.^ 

Coppee states that under Arab rule in Spain watchmen with lan- 
terns patrolled the cities at night, calling from hour to hour, Allah 
il Allah. {" Conq. Spain by the Arab-Moors," vol. ii. p. 326.) These 
cries were naturally superseded in Spain and her colonies by Ave 
Maria Purisiina, which in its turn gave way to the shrill drone of 
the reed whistle to be heard in our day. 

The electric light is playing havoc with much of the poetry of 
Mexican evening life, in which the old-time oil-lamp, suspended 
from wires crossing diagonally from corner to corner, was a conspic- 
uous feature. 

For this, also, Mexico was indebted to the Moors. The streets 
of Arabic Cordova "might be traversed at night by the light of 
lamps placed close to each other." (Copp6e, vol. ii. p. 306.) This was 
about A. D. 1 100, when neither London nor Paris were Hghted. No 
systematic attempt was made to light the city of London until after 
the plague and the great fire, and even until the days of the French 
Revolution "link-boys" stood ready to escort carriages and pedes- 
trians home through dingy, badly-paved alleys. 

Were it not for this fine regulative system derived from the Arabs, 
we might be in danger of assault from gangs {garillas) of ruffians 
{rufianes) and assassins {asesinos), who would at least make a great 
tumult or alhoroto in the street. 

CLOCKS AND WATCHES. 

The world has benefited beyond calculation by the Arabic inven- 
tion of these articles. It might almost be said that a revolution was 
brought about in social economy. One of the Roman pontiffs, Ger- 
bert, who assumed the tiara under the name of Sylvester II., was a 
student at Cordova before the year 1000, and there learned the art 
of making watches, an accomplishment which placed him under sus- 
picion of witchcraft. 

. The clocks and watches to be seen in Mexico in this generation 
are not from Morocco or Cordova, but from Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut, localities which manufacture more of them in a month 
than were made under the Califate in one hundred years. The 

1 The cry of the mueddins (of Tangier) is precisely like that of the Spanish 
sereiios, who must have learned it, as they did so many other things, from the 
Moors — a long chant on one note, sometimes shortened, sometimes prolonged." 
Margaret Thompson, A Scamper throttgh Spain and Tangier, p. 278, New York, 
Dodd, Mead & Co., 1892. 



Language, and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 97 

arched market-places, the little stands heaped high with fruits and 
vegetables and guarded by crouching figures wrapped in rebosos and 
serapes, which distinguish the towns of Mexico might be inserted as 
pictures to illustrate volumes of travel in Northern Africa or the 
Levant. 

And the book-venders who in those markets repeat aloud an out- 
line of the plot of the dog-eared books and pamphlets they have to 
sell, are they not the improvisatori of Cordova, Seville, and Toledo, 
of whom we all have read so much ? 

And this party of professional serenaders, wandering from zaguan 
to zaguan, droning amatory ditties, and bearing the emblem of a ship 
ablaze with light, do they not replace the gay troubadours of Gra- 
nada ? 

THE CUSTOM OF " PELON." 

The stores, especially in the smaller towns, are Oriental in the 
hyperbole of their titles and the tenuity of their stocks. They are 
generally small and contracted and much behind the times. A very 
curious custom, that of pelon, obtains, by which after a certain 
amount of purchase the buyer receives a rebate or gratuity, either 
in money or goods. The word pelon means a stone or weight of 
some kind used to balance the crude scales in the country parts of 
Spain. The custom of pelon as it exists along the Rio Grande is 
analogous to that of Vagniappe in Louisiana. 
s 

BAKERIES. 

The bakeries of Mexico are entitled to the grateful remembrance 
of every traveller, and the bread is of the best. The wheat is ground 
between stones in tiny mills whose wheels are turned by the water 
of aceqidas, much as in Andalusia and Murcia the grist was made 
ready for the Almanzors and Abdelmelics of centuries past. 

The Arabian fashion of selling bread from trays carried through 
the streets of Jerusalem and other cities (see Gilman, " Story of the 
Saracens," p. 435, New York, 1887) is paralleled in most of the Mexi- 
can villages, and there is rather more than an accidental resemblance 
between the street cries of this part of the New World and those of 
the land of the Moslem. " In the name of the Prophet ! Figs," is a 
cry no longer heard by Christian ears, and which has fallen back 
before the ear-piercing " Algo defruta! Algo de didce !'' of the itin- 
ant candy and fruit peddlers of Monclova, Celaya, Morelia, Quere- 
taro, Laredo, and elsewhere. 

The caldero, or wandering mender of brass pans and kettles, is 
another type of street-industry which may have come to Mexico 
from Cordova or Bagdad. 

VOL. IX. — NO. 33. 7 



98 Journal of American Folk-Lore. 

BARBER-SHOPS. 

The peluquerias or barber-shops of the larger towns recall, in their 
neatness and good taste, the great care bestowed by Arabs upon 
hair and beard. 

BATHS, 

No Mexican municipality which can possibly provide baths for the 
people neglects that solemn duty. In many of the smaller towns, 
these are noticeably fine and well arranged. There is an absence 
of unnecessary ornamentation, but no material comfort is forgotten. 

The baths are not free, the price being two cents for poor people, 
ranging from that up to dos reales, or twenty-five cents for the more 
affluent. For the smallest figure, one gets nothing but an abundance 
of clean, cold (or hot) water, and the tank to bathe in ; for dos reales 
there are attendants at hand with towels, soap, brushes, mirrors, 
and anything else that may be needed ; economy in varying degrees 
may be consulted in the intermediate prices, 

San Miguel de Allende is perhaps as good a specimen of what a 
Mexican bath-house should be as can be found within the republic. 

The attendants are very strict in preserving order and in seeing 
that each bather is provided with his own key and tank. One half 
the building is reserved for men, the other for women. 

Not a drop of water is wasted. After leaving the bath-houses, it 
runs down the side of the hill into a line of stone troughs, alongside 
which patient lavanderas are washing clothes from morning until 
night ; from the laundresses it runs down into larger pools, where 
the casincas or sheep shearers and dyers are sousing sheep, great 
hanks of woollen yarn, and piles of blankets. Farther down, it is 
contained in an aceqida deeply shaded by orange, lemon, banana, 
pecan, pomegranate, rose, willow, and oleander ; next it courses 
through one of the streets, to keep it refreshed and free from dust, 
and finally meanders across the prolific fields beyond the town. 

That the Mexican has derived his bath from the Roman, language 
tells most plainly. Everything connected with the bath is desig- 
nated by a Latin derivative. The Arabs found the bath most highly 
developed in Syria, Palestine, North Africa, and Spain, and quietly 
adopted it. They became as passionately addicted to its use as 
Romans and Greeks had been, and in their earliest chronicles accuse 
their Christian enemies of an indifference to its benefits. "It is 
related of these people of Galicia, who are all Christians, that they 
are the bravest of all the land of Afranc, but they live like savages 
or wild beasts; they never wash their persons or their garments, 
nor do they change the latter until they fall in pieces from their 



Language and Folk-Lore of the Rio Grande Valley. 99 

limbs, a mere heap of rags and tatters." ^ (Conde, "Dom. Arabs in 
Spain," vol. i. p. 203, quoting an Arabic authority, temp. Abdu-r- 
rahman I., circa 800 a. d.) 

The observation of the Mahomedans at that epoch had proba- 
bly been restricted to war parties of Christians, poorly provided, in 
the Asturian Mountains ; in the course of several centuries it is 
related that the Moorish king, Ismail of Granada, a. d. 13 16, "com- 
manded that the Christians should wear marks on their clothing 
whereby they might be distinguished from the Moslemah, and laid 
on them an impost for their dwellings and baths which they had not 
previously paid." (Conde, iii. p. 226.) 

Coppee unfairly accuses the Spaniards of destroying the baths of 
the Moors, because the religion of the Spaniards was largely a reli- 
gion of personal uncleanness. This matter is rather too delicate for 
discussion here, but certainly the monks of Spain were no more 
untidy than the fakirs and morabith of the Arab-Moor. Some 
other reason must be assigned for their suppression. They nat- 
urally would become and undoubtedly were places of political 
assignation, and the following from Stirling-Maxwell bears out this 
conclusion. In 15 18, this eminent author says, "The Moriscoes 
were commanded to lay aside their ancient language and customs : 
to speak Castilian and dress like Spaniards ; to give up bathing and 
destroy their baths ; to keep the doors of their houses open on Satur- 
days and feast days ; to renounce their national songs, dances, and 
I marriage ceremonies ; to lay down their Arabic names, and to enter- 

Vt tain among them no Moors from Barbary, whether slaves or free- 
men." (Stirling-Maxwell, " Life of Don John of Austria," vol. i. pp. 
118, 119.) He also says that they constantly entertained pirates 
from Barbary and aided them in assaults upon Christian commerce. 
The dress of the pirates of Barbary being exactly the same as that 
of the Moors, it was difficult to detect them, and many Christians 
were kidnapped. 

Having said that the Moor found the bath much as the Roman 
left it, it is easy to show that through the Spaniard he bequeathed 
it to the Mexican with little if any change, as suggested by language. 

AMUSEMENTS. 

What are the amusements, diversions, entertainments, religious 
or secular, of the Mexicans } What great religious festivals are 
observed at the mutations of the seasons? By observing closely 

1 Speaking of the Russian moujiks, Edna Dean Proctor says that their clothes 
" are worn without washing, night and day for months, and perhaps years, until 
they become rags and are exchanged for new." A Russian Journey, p. 52, Bos- 
ton, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



I oo yournal of A merican Folk-L ore. 

such matters, in which mankind is most eminently conservative, 
would it not be possible to pick up here and there a shred of some 
long-forgotten wardrobe ? The task is at least worth the effort. An 
examination should be made into those amusements which are pub- 
lic and those entertainments which are more restricted in character, 
such as christenings, weddings, funerals, balls, and all functions 
which for any reason draw together the friends of a family. 

The Mexican is endowed with a great fund of good common-sense. 
He does not believe in the cheerless existence of his Yankee brother 
who works himself to death or decrepitude before he is forty, and he 
will not follow such an example. Therefore, as a matter of duty, he 
devotes a portion of his life to rational enjoyment, and as a conse- 
quence neurasthenia is a disease unknown in Mexico, and one whose 
character it would be difficult to make a Mexican understand. 

Scarcely a town in the republic is so poor or so small that it has 
not its alaineda or its public garden, with its winding paths or rambles 
{rambla, Arabic), in which twice a week one can listen to fairly 
good music, and witness the promenade of sedate men who march 
leisurely, arm in arm, two by two, in one direction, while sefioras and 
sejioritas, equally sedate, march with equal leisure in the opposite. 

Once a week there is a performance, generally by local talent, in 
the teatro. The Mexican theatre, or the Spanish theatre, its parent, 
is a subject too vast for any such treatment as can be given here. 

The prologue to a Spanish drama is called the loa, a word meaning 
praise or eulogy. This refers to the flattering phrases addressed 
by the leading actor, in minor affairs by the clown, who is known by 
the name of payaso, to the audience. It is a sine qua non in the 
Mexican rustic representations. 

In Burgos in Spain " the prompter is protected by a sort of tin 
shell arched like the roof of an oven, to protect him against t\\& pata- 
tas, manzanas, and cdscaras de 7taranja, potatoes, apples, and orange- 
peel, with which the Spanish public — as impatient a public as ever 
existed — never fails to bombard those actors who displease them. 
. . . The actors did not know a word of their parts, and the prompter 
spoke so loudly that he completely drowned their voices." (Theo- 
phile Gautier, "Wanderings in Spain," p. 42, London, 1853.) Every 
word of the above applies to the Rio Grande. The miracle-play, 
still maintained in Mexico, has been mentioned in a previous paper. 

Other public diversions of the Mexican frontier are nmrromas, or 
tight -rope walking, with acrobatic feats, matachines, harlequins, and 
Uteres, or puppet-shows. They are too much like exhibitions of the 
same kind in other parts of the world to need description. 



Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley, loi 



GAMBLING. 

The Mexican, of whatever degree, has a natural fondness for gam- 
bling. All the elements which united to form the Mexican social 
structure, — American Indian, Arab, or Teuton, — were addicted to 
the same vice. The favorite games are monte, of two kinds, con 
qiden, roulette, chusas, keno, chess, dominoes, and some others. 
For the monte game, the terms employed do not appear to be Latin. 
Thus the cards themselves are called naipes, to shuffle is barajar, the 
knave is sota, the ace is as, and to cut is alee. Ajedrez, chess, is an 
Arabic word, "King Hixem played, as usual, his game of chess." 
(Conde, vol. i. pp. 239, 2^6) 

No Mexican house on the Rio Grande is complete without its 
ordculo or dream-book, and the women are as devoted to chiromancy 
or palmistry as the Arabs were in Cordova. (See Coppee, vol. ii. p, 
442.) The fourth council of Toledo (a. d. 633) punished with depo- 
sition any priest who consulted soothsayers. " Que sea depuesto de 
su honor el eclesiastico que consulte a agoreros 6 supersticiosos." 
(Padre Florez, "Espafia Sagrada," vol. vi. p. 164.) 

CORRER EL GALLO. 

Chicken fighting is freely indulged in by the Mexicans, as it was 
by the Arabs, but it was probably played by Romans and Carthagin- 
ians in Spain long before the Arabs landed ; therefore not much stress 
need be laid upon its existence. The Romans caused to fight both 
chickens and quails. 

There is another form of diversion with fowl which must, how- 
ever, be mentioned, although it too, in one shape or another, has 
spread over much of the surface of the earth, and that is the great 
sport of eorrer el gallo, or "running the rooster," which strictly 
speaking is more frequently an old hen. The victim selected is 
buried up to its neck in sand, and then horsemen dash at full speed 
up to the chicken, lean out from the saddle and try to grasp it. 
There are many failures, involving ludicrous mishaps and perilous 
tumbles, but finally some rider, bolder or more dextrous than his 
comrades, seizes the hen by the neck and gallops down the valley, 
followed by all the other contestants. The hen is usually torn to 
pieces in the struggle. This was the method observed at the Indian 
pueblo of Santo Domingo, New Mexico, in the month of August, 
after harvest, in 1881. ("Snake-Dance of the Moquis," Bourke, 
London and New York, 1884.) 

In the lower Rio Grande, on St. John's Day (June), the young 
men engage in eorrer el gallo, but instead of a living bird make use 



I02 journal of American Folk-Lore. 

of an image of paper, ribbon, and feathers. In both cases the riding 
is superb, and there are not a few accidents.^ 

BAILES AND TERTULIAS. 

When a dancing party is decided upon in a Mexican village, the 
affair takes shape by a sort of spontaneous generation. The young 
men display an activity not usual with them and busy themselves in 
putting the selected room to rights. There is not very much to be 
done, and yet there is always something. The musicians must be 
notified, the earthen floor must be wet down, tallow candles are 
needed in the tin sconces attached to the walls, the saints' pictures 
require dusting, rawhide^seated chairs are to be borrowed, two and 
three from this neighbor and two and three from that, and then 
everybody has to be invited. In the really good old times, this was 
done hy 2l pregonero, or crier, who bawled the welcome notice through 
the streets ; later on, when society began to divide up into classes, 
the select few were called upon by some of the self-appointed com- 
mittee of young men having the funcion in charge ; but in these 
days of degeneracy there are few villages along the border which do 
not aspire to printed forms of invitation. But the Mexican baile is 
not what it used to be twenty-five or thirty years ago. Board floors 
and kerosene-lamps, cottage-organs, ready-made gowns, and hand- 
me-down suits have wrought destruction upon its erewhile beauties 
and knocked all the poetry out of it. 

The dancing would begin very soon after dark and last until all 
hours of the next morning. The young ladies were not escorted 
from their homes by gentlemen, but came under the guardianship of 
aged female relatives or attendants, called dttenas, and the older, 
uglier, and more crabbed a dueha happened to be the more highly 
was her efficiency regarded. The duena possibly was known to the 
Romans ; she certainly was known to the Arab-Moors in Spain, who 
allowed their women a freedom entirely distinct from the seclusion 
enforced in other sections of the Mahomedan world. 

With the arrival of the young men the fun began. Scarcely had a 
gallant put his foot across the threshold before some young lady 
would assail him with a cascaron. To make the cascaron (lit. egg- 
shells) an egg is carefully blown of its meat and then filled with 
cologne, or essence of musk, or finely chopped gold and silver tissue 
paper. The aperture is then sealed up, the egg-shell decorated, and 

^ Correr el gallo seems to be the same, or of the same general nature, as the 
French yV?^ du canard^ in which a duck, head downward, is suspended from a rope 
or a limb of a tree, and a blindfolded boy tries to cut off its head with a sabre. 
See A Tour through the Pyrennees^ Hyppolite Adolphe Taine, Fiske's transla- 
tion, pp. 92, 93, New York, Holt &: Co., 1874. 



Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 103 

the cascaron is ready for business. A lady takes one and approach- 
ing a cavalier breaks it on his head, rubbing the pieces well into his 
hair. The etiquette of the border requires the swain to provide 
himself with a cascaron (there is a table loaded with them in one cor- 
ner), and to return the compliment in kind, being careful not to rub 
the fragments too deep into the lady's tresses, as they are not easy 
to get out. Then he is expected to lead her out upon the floor and 
dance with her. The dance ended, he escorts her to a table upon 
which are refreshments of different kinds, syrups, and didces. The 
senorita very generally helps herself to a portion of fruit, cakes, or 
pasas (raisins of the country), and puts it away in a large handker- 
chief to be carried home when the entertainment is over. 

There may be many means of determining who has been the belle 
of some particular ball, but there has never been a surer indication 
than the size of the bundle the Rio Grande girl had to carry home a 
generation ago. 

In England, as late as 1677, it was the custom for guests at chris- 
tenings to carry home what they could not eat. (See Brand, " Pop. 
Antiq.," vol. ii. p. 80, article "Christening," London, 1872.) 

The origin of the cascaron is obscure ; in the light of evidence 
now available it would be going too far to say that it was Arabic, 
and yet only in that direction can any trace of its paternity be found. 

At the marriage of Molmun, son of Haroun al Raschid, which 
occurred at Wasit, a suburb of Bagdad, about 825 a. d., we read that 
" balls of amber or musk were thrown among the attendant throngs. 
. . . Coins of gold and silver, and eggs of amber woxt. also lavishly 
cast about to be picked up by whoever would." (Arthur Oilman, 
"The Story of the Saracens," p. 303, New York, 1887.) 

The Mahomedans in Spain are reported to have had two, some say 
four festivals corresponding to Easter. There was certainly one, the 
Alfitra, at close of the Ramazan, and another, that of the Victims. 
"During both these solemnities, profane and worldly follies had 
been permitted to creep in — the people going about the streets 
like madmen, casting oranges and other fruits at each other, and 
every one besprinkling his neighbor with odorous waters." (Conde, 
" Dom. Arabs in Spain," vol. iii. p. 263.) These " disorders " were 
suppressed by Jusef in a. d. 1343. 

There are no formal presentations at these Mexican parties be- 
cause none are needed ; each guest knows his neighbor. Consid- 
erable liberty of action is conceded, and all who so desire, men or 
women, smoke, and there is much gossip and abuse of the neighbors 
who are absent, and sometimes much carcajada or noisy laughter 
(an Arabic word). Mexican courtesy attracts the respectful atten- 
tion of every observer. It is not put on as a garment to be worn at 



I04 yournal of American Folk-Lore. 

balls and on occasions of ceremony, but is ever present, and has 
become as it were a second nature. Mexicans, in meeting, embrace 
each other as the Moors and Arabs do. The proudest gentleman in 
the land will take off his hat to return the salutation of the beggar 
who begs a light for his cigaridto, or will beg his pardon in the name 
of God when declining his supplication for charity. 

CHRISTENINGS. 

The Mexican comadre or gossip appears to the best advantage 
when a new baby is to be admitted into the fold of the church. The 
party having returned from the sanctuary, the house is thrown open 
to friends, there are music, conversation, and dancing, with refresh- 
ments to which all are made welcome, even the beggars on the 
streets. 

Conde remarks that hcLcer buenas fadas was the phrase used to 
express the festival always held on giving a child its name, which 
was done on the eighth day after its birth. ..." A part of the 
food prepared for the occasion was then given to the poor." (Conde, 
"Dom. Arabs in Spain," vol. i. p. 478.) 

It should be borne in mind that name-^dcj^ not birtk-didiys, are cel- 
brated along the Rio Grande ; invitations are extended for celebra- 
tions on the day of the saint whose name is borne by the host ; and 
thus it often happens that on the same evening one may have the 
opportunity to enjoy the hospitality of several Juans, Anitas, or Gua- 
dalupes, as the case may be. The greatest term of endearment that 
can be given to a neighbor is tocallo, namesake. When the infant 
son of Abdur-r-rhaman I. received the name of Hixem, " that auspi- 
cious event was celebrated with many rejoicings, the king Abdur-r- 
rhaman dispensing alms very liberally and giving food to the poor in 
adundance." (Conde, vol. i. p. 182.) 

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 

Of the customs connected with courtship and weddings among 
the Mexicans much of a most interesting nature might be written. 
In an outline description of this nature nothing more than a refer- 
ence to salient features is permissible. The relations between the 
sexes being under strict surveillance among the Mexicans, young 
men and women have not the same opportunities for becoming 
acquainted as have been found of advantage in the United States. 

AJoven who feels the first impulses of the tender passion has few 
if any opportunities for meeting the object of his affections alone, 
much less of conversing with her save in the presence of parent or 
grim duena. 

He may dance with her at parties, speak to her at christening, 



Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 105 

kneel near her at mass or vespers, perhaps enjoy the bliss of sprink- 
ling her with holy water, but his chief pleasure or his chief misery, 
as one may choose to regard such matters, is to be found in " play- 
ing the bear" {jiigando el oso, or oseando, as the term goes). The un- 
fortunate young man takes station close to the lattice of the young 
senorita, and there remains until by accident she approaches and 
looks down upon him, and by accident drops a flower or a handker- 
chief, — accidents of this kind are constantly happening in the best 
Mexican families, — and then, animated by hope, he may venture 
to send some female relative to sound the girl's parents as to their 
disposition. 

Among the rural Mexicans who adhere most obstinately to old 
usages, a betrothal is an affair of some formality. The aspirant 
makes evident the sincerity of his declaration by the tender of the 
do7ieSy presents of some value, generally jewelry, which, if accepted, 
give him the right to walk with the young lady and her family to 
church and places of entertainment. 

As the wedding day approaches, he buys the trousseau for the 
bride. This custom is now dying out in all but the remote Mexican 
districts, yet it is still noted in Cuba. 

The parents of the bride generally provide a dowry and arrange a 
wedding-feast which is as elaborate and bountiful as their means 
will permit, and liquor in abundance may always be looked for. 
The entertainment is most frequently held out of doors, the climate 
favoring such a course, but the wedding itself, when possible, must 
be held in the church. At the words in the ritual, " with all my 
worldly goods," the bridegroom casts thirteen pieces of money upon 
a plate held by one of the officiating priest's assistants. This money 
is blessed by the celebrant, and restored to the donor, who replaces 
it with its equivalent in coin of the realm and has the original pieces 
made into 2cpulsera or bracelet for his bride. This custom, known 
as the arras, is explained by local wiseacres to represent our Saviour 
and the twelve apostles, but what our Saviour and the twelve apos- 
tles, including Judas, have to do with a Mexican wedding would be 
hard to say. 

On the contrary, the ceremony is a Moorish one, and the name 
arras itself is Moorish, given by Eguilaz y Yanguas in " Glosario," 
with a definition sustaining the above description. 

At a very elegant wedding in Laredo, Texas, the bride sent for all 
the gentlemen present and graciously conferred upon each one a 
rosebud from the bouquet which she had carried to the altar. 

At another, in Saltillo, although the bridal couple and their imme- 
diate attendants returned home in carriages, the spectators streamed 
in procession on foot to the bride's house, where they were met by 



io6 Journal of American Folk- Lore. 

an orchestra, and in a few minutes afterwards by a procession of 
servants bearing platters in each of which was a roasted chicken 
or duck, whose head had been replaced and gilded with an effect 
decidedly barbaric and magnificent. 

To compare all the above with Arabic or Moorish ceremonials, 
extracts can be taken from excellent authorities ; thus, Cond6 says 
that at the marriage of Abdelmelic and Habiba, a. d. 989, "the 
wedding festival was held in the beautiful gardens of the Almunia." 
("Dom. Arabs in Spain," vol. ii. p. 13.) 

A recent writer in "All the Year Round," describing a wedding 
among the Kabyles of North Africa, has this to tell. The bride " is 
led to the bridegroom to the accompaniment of more tambor music. 
He opens the door, takes her by the hand, makes her sit by him on 
the cushions, after which he lifts her veil, and for the first time looks 
upon his wife's face. The lady says not a word to her husband until 
he has made her a present, either of jewelry or gold pieces. The 
next day there is a great deal of fritter-making in the new establish- 
ment, for distribution among the various friends and relatives on 
both sides." 

The writer in commenting upon his own description adds : "Here 
it is the girl's father who exacts a wedding portion." 

Thus far there has been demonstrated a surprising similarity in 
the existence of customs like the arras, wedding festivities out of 
doors, and the eating of fritters corresponding to the bimuelos men- 
tioned in foregoing pages. Among the " Arabs the marriage con- 
tract might be only verbal ; but the better classes confirmed it before 
the kadi, and for them the ceremonies of betrothal and espousal 
were elaborate and splendid." (Coppee, "Hist. Conq. Spain," vol. 

ii- P- 33I-) 

That wine flowed as freely at the weddings of the Arab-Moors in 
Spain as it does in those of the wealthy Mexicans of to-day is beyond 
question. 

That curious system, " marriage by capture," prevailed in almost 
all primitive society, as may be learned by an examination of McLen- 
non's "Primitive Marriage." It certainly prevailed among the Ara- 
bians of early times. Oilman says that "the ferocious custom of 
burying female offspring aUve as soon as born was followed, either 
as considering women not worth bringing up, or from an exaggerated 
sense of honor, as though fearing that the helpless ones might some 
day be carried off by an enemy" (Arthur Oilman, "The Story of 
the Saracens," p. 63, New York, Putnams, 1887), while Conde, 
describing the marriage of Abdelmehc and Habiba, refers to " the 
feigned defence made by the damsels " composing the retinue of 
the bride. ("Dom. Arabs in Spain," vol. ii. p. 13.) He also speaks 



Lafiguage and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 107 

of the "delightful music which sounded through the night." (Idem, 
vol. ii. p. 13.) 

A suggestion of this form of wife-capture could be found among 
the Mexicans less than a generation ago, in the city of Tucson, Ari- 
zona. 

On Saint John's Day, or more strictly on the night of that day, the 
young bucks of the city and vicinity, dressed in their best, and 
mounted upon prancing plugs gayly caparisoned, rode up to the doors 
of their dulcineas, where those blushing senoritas in their finest rai- 
ment awaited the great honor of being lifted up on the pommel of 
the saddle, where, firmly encircled by one stout arm of their cavaliers, 
they enjoyed the eagerly sought privilege conceded for that occasion 
only of riding up and down the streets unattended in the company 
of a man. 

As it happened, there were not enough girls or not enough horses 
to go around, and some of the gay cavaliers had to enjoy themselves 
as best they might on foot, and this they did by throwing firecrack- 
ers at the horses of their luckier rivals as the latter, holding their 
gentle burdens, cantered up and down the streets. Why there were 
no necks or limbs broken will always remain one of those mysteries 
for which no solution can be offered. 

This knowledge of and love for fireworks and illuminations was 
duly transmitted to Mexico and the Mexicans, and may be seen 
reflected in the civic and religious celebrations of all the cities and 
towns from the Rio Nueces to Tehuantepec. 

Still another observance connected with St. John's Day on the 
lower Rio Grande is that of taking a bath in the stream and putting 
on new clothes. Here is something closely akin to the ceremonial 
ablutions enjoined by the Prophet upon his followers. 

MORTUARY CEREMONIES. 

When little children died among the Mexicans, the body neatly 
dressed in white, with a helmet of gilt paper, or else with a garland 
of artificial flowers, was laid upon a board, or upon a temporary bier, 
and borne to the church and thence to the grave by surviving com- 
rades, preceded by musicians playing waltzes or soft, sad music. 

Grown people were buried in much the same manner. The corpse 
was not preceded by music, but it was laid upon a rude bier, clad in 
its best apparel. Wood was extremely dear, and coffins were within 
reach of only the very wealthy. The object seemed to be so to hurry 
matters that the remains might be interred within less than twenty- 
four hours after decease. The male mourners, wearing above their 
elbows tiny bows of black crape, marched two and two, each bearing 
a candle which was lit as the procession entered the church. The 



io8 Journal of American Folk-Lore. 

women, also two by two, and bearing candles, followed after the 
men, but their candles remained unlit. The evening after the fu- 
neral they would meet in some designated house, light their candles, 
and talk about the defunct and his virtues until the candles burned 
away. On ranches at a distance from towns, rockets were sent up, 
to warn the neighbors that the funeral was about to start, to ward 
off evil influences, or for both purposes. 

These mortuary ceremonies of the Mexicans, with only slight 
allowance for time and distance, are found among the Moors to-day. 
Speaking of the Moors of Tangiers, Miss Margaret Thompson says : 
"They carry their dead to the grave with a triumphant march, 
chanting all the way a joyous air. The bodies are buried without 
coffins, wrapped in linen." ("A Scamper through Spain and Tan- 
giers," p. 265, New York, 1892.) 

Conde, when treating of the funerals of the Arabs in the first cen- 
turies after their arrival in Spain, never mentions coffins, but always 
speaks of the dead being carried on biers. The Spanish word for 
coffin is the Arabic ataud, but that meant the plank on which the 
corpse was carried. When he speaks of Christian funerals he always 
mentions coffins. After the Moors had mingled with their former 
foemen, and become their vassals, references will be found to their 
use of coffins and caskets. 

CUSTOMS IN CHURCHES. 

Upon first entering a Mexican church, an American accustomed 
to the comfortably, gayly dressed congregations of women of his 
own section will be impressed by the absence of pews or seats of 
any kind, and by the numbers of women who, closely wrapped in 
black rebosos or tapalos, kneel on the floor of earth and cough inces- 
santly during the service. 

This uniform method of covering the heads and shoulders is Moor- 
ish : " No maiden went to a mosque where there was not a place set 
apart for the virgins ; and every woman was carefully wrapped up 
and covered with her veil." (Conde, "Dom. Arabs in Spain," vol. 
ii. p. 3, footnote.) 

This custom became a matter of obligation under King Juzef, who 
in A. D. 1343, ordered that when women entered mosques "all were 
to be carefully veiled." (Conde, vol. iii. p. 262.) To enter a church 
unveiled signified, during Moorish times, that a woman was a Chris- 
tian. Such an act led to the detection of two young Moorish girls, 
Sabagotha and Liliosa, who had secretly become Christians (a. d. 
852). (Padre Florez, "Espana Sagrada," vol. x. p. 381.) 

" The men very frequently, when impelled by an excess of devotion, 
will pray stretched at full length, or bent low to the floor, or with 



Language and Folk-Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 109 

arms extended in form of a cross. This method of " prayer with 
prostrations " is mentioned by Cond6, vol. ii. p. 6-^, and again in vol. 
iii. p. 272, where he calls it aiiata. At the doors of Mexican 
churches, in the republic of Mexico itself, are still to be found ven- 
ders of wax tapers and small candles which are purchased by the pious 
and burned in front of the altars, sometimes held by the devout sup- 
pliant, sometimes placed upon the altar itself. 

This practice was prevalent in Moorish Spain, where we read of 
a youth " whose father was a lamplighter, or burner of tapers at the 
shrines of saints in the great Aljama.''^ (Coppee, "History of 
the Conq. of Spain by the Arab-Moors," vol. ii. p. 229.) As is well 
known, there is sacred dancing in the Cathedral of Seville, tolerated 
by the Papal authorities, on the feasts of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion, Corpus Christi, and the last three days of the carnival. The 
ten dancers wear costumes of the time of Philip II., and move to the 
sound of castanets. In the time of Philip II., the Moors were still a 
potent social element in and around Seville, the castanet was a 
Moorish instrument of music, or at least they inherited it from 
Carthaginians and Romans, and the feasts mentioned were as 
much Moorish as they were Christian. 

No dancing is held in any other church in Europe, Catholic or 
Protestant, or in any in America, so far as known, excepting in that 
of Madalena, Sonora, Mexico, where as late as 1873 the Yagui Indi- 
ans, then at peace with the Mexicans, executed a stately dance to 
the music of rattles on the feast-day of Saint Francis of Assisi, 
October 4. Dancing in churches was prohibited by third Council of 
Toledo {a. d. 589). "Que en las fiestas no se permitiesen danzas 
ni cantares torpes," (Padre Florez, " Espana Sagrada," vol. vi. p. 
144.) 

ALMSGIVING, FASTING, PILGRIMAGES, ABLUTIONS. 

" Prayer, fasting, and alms are the religious duties of a Mussul- 
man," according to Gibbon, in "Decline and Fall," chap. 50. To 
these he adds pilgrimages and ceremonial ablutions. 

Conde tells the same story. Mahomed " commended the use of 
certain practices of ablution and purification, enjoining likewise daily 
prayers, almsgiving, and religious pilgrimages to the temple of 
Alharem." (Conde, vol. i. p. 34.) Had the same ordinances been 
given direct to the Mexicans, they could not be observed more strictly 
than they are at the present day. Of prayer enough has been said. 

1 Padre Florez mentions a Moorish prince, an ambassador to Queen Urraca, 
who knelt at the shrine of St. James of Compostella, with a wax taper {ci7-io) in 
hand to implore a cure for a tumor in his chest (a. d. 1122). {^Espana Sagrada, 
vol. xix. p. 277.) 



no yottrnal of American Folk-Lore. 

Of ceremonial ablutions it has been intimated that the annual lustra- 
tion of the Mexicans in the Rio Grande on St. John's Day might be 
regarded as having such a character. Pilgrimages in Mexico are 
made with frequency to such shrines as Madalena, the chorro, which 
is an old pagan place of worship, to Guadalupe, outside of the city of 
Mexico, where the Aztecs in prehistoric ages adored their goddess 
Tepeayac, to Agualeguas and many others. 

To all these cities and towns, and to all others, such as Tucson, 
when celebrating their saint's day, flock scores of petty merchants, 
peddlers, buyers, sellers, tramps, cripples and beggars, confident of a 
satisfactory harvest. Certain exemptions and commercial privileges 
attached to these gatherings during the years of the Spanish vice- 
regal rule, and the custom would seem to have been inbred. 

Alms were distributed by the Moslem on Fridays. (Conde, vol. 
ii. p. 134.) By the ordinances of King Juzef (a. d. 1243-1250) "the 
believers were enjoined to employ the leisure of that day (Friday) in 
visiting and relieving the poor." (Conde, vol. iii. p. 262.) 

Friday, as is well understood, was the Mahomedan Sabbath. The 
beggars of Mexico do not restrict their importunities to any one day, 
but impartially distribute their favors, and at church doors, or za- 
guanes of private mansions, from Monday morning until Saturday 
night, whine their dolorous appeals for "a little alms for the love of 
God." 

A Mexican may give in a number of different ways. There is the 
usual limosnita or alms to beggars, the regalo or ordinary present, 
the recuerdo or souvenir, the dones (pi. of doii), gift made to affianced 
wife, estrena Christmas gift, albricias (Arabic), present made to 
bringer of glad tidings, aguinaldo or New Year's gift, a word which 
has been shown to be allied to the French aguilanneuf and to em- 
body the cry of the Keltic Druids at opening of the new year, and 
propina much like our philopoena. 

PENITENTES. 

It might be well to say a word about the penitentes, or contrite 
sinners, who only a few years ago publicly whipped and otherwise 
mortified themselves in the streets of every village along the Rio 
Grande and throughout the republic. They were of the very same 
class as thQ Jlagelantes of Spain, and grew out of the same morbid 
and atonic spirituality which had surrounded the Moorish sant07tes 
with the halo of godliness. 

In the church of St, Gines, in Madrid, in " the boveda or dark 
vault, . . . during Lent, flagellants whip themselves, the sexton fur- 
nishing the cats ; some have nine tails and are really stained with 
blood. In the good old times of Philip IV. Spaniards whipped them- 



Language and Folk- Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 1 1 1 

selves publicly in the streets." (Richard Ford, "Hand-Book of 
Spain," p. 79, London, 1882.) 

Similar scenes have been enacted very recently in the old temple 
of Atotonilco, and one of the disciplinas there employed is now in 
the United States National Museum, Washington, D. C, and every 
army officer who served on the Rio Grande a quarter of a century 
ago can recall many remarkable incidents transpiring during Holy 
Week. The power of the church has been exercised remorselessly 
and in most of the villages effectually to stamp out this survival of 
savagery and barbarism. But from time to time they are again heard 
of and described. Within a few months, " Harper's Weekly " has 
published Mr. D. J. Flynn's illustrated description of those seen by 
him in Taos, New Mexico, at the head of the Rio Grande, which 
region, it may be noted, is a hotbed of penitente-ism. Another 
recent and lifelike article upon the same subject is from the pen of 
Charles F. Lummis. 

Madame Calderon de la Barca describes those seen by her in the 
city of Mexico ("Life in Mexico," pp. 213, 214, London, 1843), and 
Colonel John Hay, in his " CastiUan Days," speaks of them as still 
existing in the outlying districts of Spain.^ 

PHRASES AND CATCHWORDS. 

From prayers in churches to prayers, ejaculations, and oaths in 
conversation is an easy transition. The most ordinary prayer of 

1 Flagellants. — M. I'Abbd Boileau, Docteur de la Sorbonne, in his VHistoire des 
Flagellants, 2d, ed., Amsterdam, 1732, says that flagellation found no authority for 
its existence in either the Old or New Testament, or in Patristic teachings, unless 
as a punishment duly inflicted upon conviction for adultery, fornication, larceny, 
or such offences. 

The early Christians observed with honor the recklessness with which the 
Romans beat their slaves, and recoiled with disgust from the voluntary flagellations 
of the Lupercalia. From the time of St. Augustine, the lash was administered to 
heretics and criminals. 

There was no voluntary flagellation among the anchorites of the East. About 
the year A. D. 1000, when the idea first began to take shape that the end of the 
world was approaching, flagellants began to appear, and in 1047 or 1056 they 
assumed an organization largely because their cause had been espoused by S. 
Peter Damien, although no less an authority than Bruno, the grim Carthusian, 
fought them with might and main. 

These Flagellants were condemned by the Church, and almost suppressed, but 
with the outbreak of the plague in the thirteenth century there was a recrudescence 
of this fanatical idiocy which perpetuated it until the agitation of the Reformation 
gave the ecclesiastical authorities more important matters to think about. The 
parliament of Paris formally interdicted the Flagellants in 1601. During the 
years of the plague, droves of Flagellants, numbering hundreds, marched through 
Germany, Italy, and France, halting but one night in each village, and scourging 
themselves three times a day. 



1 1 2 journal of American Folk-Lore. 

Mexican life is one of Moorish origin, Ojald ! or Would to God ! that 
is to say, Would to Allah ! The original of this is said to have been : 
en schd allah, if God would. (G. Korting, Lat.-rom. Wort., 1891.) 

Recognizing this as having been in its origin a prayer, and realiz- 
ing that in the expressions, Ojald que sea ! and Ojald que fuei'e ! 
(Would to God it may be ! and Would to God it might be !) it is con- 
stantly on the lips of Mexican men and women, it is not too much 
to assert that within the territorial limits of the United States to-day, 
in the ratio of population, more prayers ascend to the prophet of the 
Moslem than are offered to Jesus Christ. 

This pious " God knows how that may be ! " of the Arabic chron- 
iclers is literally translated into the Mexican Dios solo sabe ! 

PROVERBS AND REFRAINS. 

The dignified sedateness of Mexican conversation is spiced and 
enlivened by an Attic salt of bright, pungent, and philosophical 
refranes not a few of which seem to have a distinctly Moorish flavor, 
but a full treatment of this part of the subject would fill a volume by 
itself. 

"But, besides the lexical tributes, we must include the forms of 
thought and modes of proverbial expression of which the Spanish 
is full and which are the vehicle of ' the wit and wisdom ' of Don 
Quixote. The traveller in Spain, as he listens to the proverbs, in 
the mouth of every peasant, seems transplanted to the land and 
period of the Arabian Nights." (Coppee, " Hist. Conq. Spain," vol. 
ii. p. 344.) 

SUPERSTITIONS. 

An attempt at an outline description of the popular superstitions 
and folk-medicine of the Mexican population of the Rio Grande Val- 
ley was published about one year ago in the Journal of American 
Folk-Lore. At the present time nothing will be done beyond indi- 
cating wherein certain of those superstitions had their analogues 
among the Arab-Moors. Mahomed was a firm believer in the evil 
eye. (See Gilman, " Story of the Saracens," p. 166.) 

During thunder-storms it was narrated that sand was thrown in 
the air to avert bad luck. At his first battle with the people of 
Medina, " the prophet (Mahomed) started from his throne, mounted 
his horse, and cast a handful of sand into the air." (Gibbon, "Decline 
and Fall," chap. 50. See, also, "Medicine Men of the Apache," 
Bourke.) 

The dread of the bruja or witch indicates the fear which the Arab 
had of the same class of malefactors. 

The Mexican fear of cross-eyed or one-eyed men may embalm a 
vague tradition of the conquest of Spain by Tarik el Tuerto (Tarik 



Language and Folk- Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 1 1 3 

the one-eyed or twisted-eyed). Richard Ford mentions the Roman 
emperor Theodosius (a Spaniard by birth) and the great Moorish 
king Abdu-r-rahman as having also been ttierto. 

King Juzef, in A. d. 1343, "forbade the circulation through the 
streets and markets of those who put up prayers for rain. . . . He 
commanded that when excess of drought or want of rain should 
appear to necessitate prayer, those who made that offering should go 
forth to the fields with much devotion and humility, entreating par- 
don many times for their sins, and uttering the following words with 
sincerity and cordial devotion." (Here follows a long prayer which, 
with appropriate modifications, could be recited to-day in Taos or 
Rio Grande city. (See Conde, vol. iii. pp. 263, 264.) 

" The last two suras of the Koran . . . are written out and worn 
as amulets or committed to memory and repeated as charms." (Gil- 
man, "The Story of the Saracens," p. 167, New York, 1887.) 

This , is done every day on the Rio Grande, substituting verses 
from the Bible, or prayers to saints for the suras. 

The Arabs have a superstition that " prosperity is with sorrel 
horses." Mishkat-el-Masabreb H., quoted by Coppee, " Conq. of 
Spain by the Arab-Moors," vol. i. p. 8, Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 
1881. 

Compare with this the Mexican refran, — 

Alazan tostddo, 

Antes muerto que consado. 

The toasted sorrel [horse] 
Will fall dead before he '11 tire. 

TREATMENT OF THE SICK. 

The Mexicans are pronounced fatalists; few Mahomedans could 
excel them in that direction. If one of a family of children be taken 
down with the smallpox, the mother will put the others to bed with 
it, and if they also be stricken will resignedly murmur, "Dios lo 
quiere," God wills it. The Arab use of hasheesh (see " Alhaxix " and 
"Bange" in Eguilaz y Yanguas, "Glosario") is paralleled by the Mex- 
ican use of the tolvaichi, a plant also of the hemp family. Tolvaichi, 
it is said, can make people crazy, and there are some Mexicans who 
affect to believe that the unfortunate Carlota was loco'ed by having 
it administered to her in coffee. Some confidence in the remedial 
powers of United States Army surgeons has been developed in the 
minds of educated Mexicans during the past generation, but the 
ignorant masses still consult the curanderas, who are ostensibly 
herbalists, but in reality deal in all sorts of charms and trash. 

Mexicans of this class place more reliance upon pilgrimages, 

VOL. IX. — NO. 33. 8 



114 journal of A merican Folk-Lore. 

:amulets, talismans, novenas, candles, and aids of this kind than in 
all the medicaments and all the physicians in the world. 

MIRACLE WORKERS. 

The Rio Grande is the land of the supernatural. The Mexican 
government has had its share of trouble in suppressing insurrections 
incited by rehgious enthusiasts. Only three years since, troops in 
solid battalions were sent to Tomasichi in the Sierra Madre on the 
line between Chihuahua and Sonora, to reduce to reason and obe- 
dience to law the untamed enthusiasts who rallied round a miracle- 
working "Santa Teresa." 

The " San Pedro " of the town of Olmos, whose therapeutical 
antics were alluded to in "The American Congo," paid a visit to the 
highly refined and intellectual city of San Antonio, Texas, only last 
spring, and as the local papers stated was called upon by "thousands 
of people," while "letters and telegrams began pouring in upon him 
from all quarters." ^ 

Such prophets, semi-prophets, and inspired healers correspond 
closely to the Mahdis who since a. d. 685 have arisen periodically 
among the Moslems ; have under the name of the alnioravides and 
ahnohades twice regenerated Spain, which was supposed to be grow- 
ing lukewarm in the interests of Islam, and have within our own 
generation driven the English out of the Soudan. (See Cond^, 
" Dom. Arabs in Spain," vol. ii. p. 354; Oilman, "Story of the 
Saracens," p. 414.) 

LAWS AND REGULATIVE SYSTEM. 

It is not to be expected that the regulative system of Mexico should 
preserve anything but the laws and decrees issuing from time to 
time from the Spanish crown direct, or intermediately through the 
viceroys. 

The basis of this system should be sought for in the antique 
fueros in the " Siete Partidas," and the recopilaciSnes, inspired by the 
humane sentiments in the last will of Isabella the Catholic. Never- 
theless, some few relics exist which speak plainly of the presence 
and influence of the Arab-Moor. 

For example, the presiding judge in little Mexican communities is 
still designated by the Arabic name of alcalde, and his executive 

^ As these notes reach a conclusion, the press dispatches report the presence in 
Denver, Colorado of one Schlatter, a "divine healer" who has also been sur- 
rounded by thousands of devout admirers. Little did the projectors of the Union 
Pacific Railway imagine, thirty-five years ago, that special trains would in our day 
run over that superb highway of travel carrying the rich and credulous to be 
"healed " by such an impostor as Schlatter ; but the world moves. 



Language and Folk- Usage of the Rio Grande Valley. 1 1 5 

ofificer is called in some places the alguazil, in others the xerife 
(both Arabic names), and a man entering the court might do so in 
his shirt sleeves, but if he kept on his spurs he became liable to pun- 
ishment for contempt, a reminiscence of the Arab idea of the neces- 
sity of taking off the shoes before entering a holy place. 

Irrigation being essentially an Arab-Moorish introduction into 
Spain, there should be found traces of its parentage in the nomen- 
clature and rules governing it. And this is so. Not only are the 
great irrigating ditches known as acequias and zanjas (Arabic words), 
but the officer in charge is called the acequiador or zmijero, and is 
clothed with peculiar powers. Whenever the ditches break, his rule 
is supreme and overrides that of alcalde, priest, or doctor ; he can 
impose corves of labor upon the population and make everything 
bend to his will. In the distribution of the water, he gives first to 
the oldest settler, without regard to the position of his fields along 
the line of the ditch. When farms and pasturage are subdivided, 
the Mexican rule is to have this so done that each porcion shall have 
free access to ditch or river, and on the Rio Grande there are such 
porciones, suitable principally for grazing, which are fifteen miles 
deep, with a frontage of one hundred varas or a little over 300 feet 
along the acequia tnadre. 

Peonage, or slavery for debt, has only within the present genera- 
tion been abolished in Mexico and the Mexican parts of the United 
States. The Mexican peon was not a slave in the English interpre- 
tation of the term ; he had many privileges and full protection in 
most of his rights; was always treated with kindness, and corre- 
sponded fully to the Arabic mauli mentioned by Coppee, "Hist. 
Spain," vol. i. p. 63, and Stanley Lane-Poole, " Story of the Saracens," 
p. 48. 

COMMERCE, 

Among the Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, the word 
for borax (used as a flux by their silversmiths) is tinea. This word 
came to them from the Moors through the Spaniards. It is a Thi- 
betan word, and tincal is still an article of Thibetan export. (W. W. 
Rockhill, "Land of the Lamas," pp. 272 and 339, New York, 1891, 
footnote.) It was used by Arab silversmiths, according to Eguilaz y 
Yanguas. These same Pueblo Indians learned the art of knitting 
from the Spaniards. The men do the knitting, just as they do in 
Spain and in Mahomedan countries to-day. In Leon, in Spain, "the 
men spin and the women delve." (Richard Ford, Hand-Book of 
Spain," vol. i. p. 201, London, 1882.) 

Bayard Taylor saw Turkish men knitting in Phrygia, in Asia 
Minor. (" Lands of the Saracens," p. 282, New York, Putnams, 
1873.) 

yohn G. Bourke. 



1 1 6 journal of American Fo Ik-Lore. 

Editor's Note. — The printed form of this article never met the eyes of its au- 
thor. The President of the American Folk-Lore Society died at Philadelphia, 
June 8, 1896. Of the irreparable loss which his departure will be to the Society, 
and of the grief which it will bring to many devoted friends, this is not the place 
to speak. The life and services of Captain Bourke will receive memorial mention 
in another part of the present number. 



